While joking about short attention span and forgetfulness, I came across an idea: how would a race with a really short memory be able to amount to something?

Then, I thought of the Chant. Everything important is chanted, and the individual can repeat a certain amount of information in his chant; by listening to the Chant of others, he has access to various bits of information. All worth knowing is kept alive in the Chant.The ways to till fields, harvest fruit, to work the fabrics... chants of gods and fiends alike, the laws and ideals.

The language of the Chanters has several boons: it carries highly condensed information, it is near impossible to pronounce by outsiders, it carries far and clear.

Chanter cities are never silent; they're built so that chants resonate within them and are carried into the most distant corners.By necessity, Chanters are very social, for a lone Chanter soon forgets who he is.

The race is intended more as color; they do not make good adversaries nor PCs.

« Last Edit: June 10, 2016, 03:29:54 AM by EchoMirage »

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"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

PoisonAlchemist: Man Muro, you boost my confidence and then you just go crush it with a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Pariah: Don't tell him things like that, if his head gets any bigger he'll float off like a weather ballon :p

Perhaps the Chant is a way to establish the knowledge. Once they chant something for long enough it finally becomes part of their knowledge never to be forgotten. So, while they have horrible memories in general, they can be extremely specialized in their knowledge and what they are chosen to remember. There are others whose sole purpose is to know who has the knowledge.

I seem to remember some gnomes or something that we did this with somewhere. Seems to have become familiar when I was typing the above....like I chanted it before.

PoisonAlchemist: Man Muro, you boost my confidence and then you just go crush it with a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Pariah: Don't tell him things like that, if his head gets any bigger he'll float off like a weather ballon :p

Perhaps the Chant is a way to establish the knowledge. Once they chant something for long enough it finally becomes part of their knowledge never to be forgotten. So, while they have horrible memories in general, they can be extremely specialized in their knowledge and what they are chosen to remember. There are others whose sole purpose is to know who has the knowledge.

I seem to remember some gnomes or something that we did this with somewhere. Seems to have become familiar when I was typing the above....like I chanted it before.

We could call it "Eternal Resonance" - anything that achieves this state forevermore vibrates through the world, heard by Chanters everywhere. They'd still sing the given stanzas when actively using that knowledge, like:

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"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"